Thomas Jefferson: Author of America

( 22 )
Pick Up In Store

Pick Up in Store

Reserve and pick up in 60 minutes at your local store

Paperback
$10.98
BN.com price
$13.99 List Price (Save 22%)
Marketplace (New and Used)
from
$7.00
$13.99 List Price (Save 50%)
Usually ships within 1-2 business days
All (18)  
Used (6)  
New (12)  
Close
Sort by
Page 1 of 2
Showing 1 – 10 of 18 (2 pages)
$7.00
(Save 50%)
Textbookcenter.com
Seller since 2005

Feedback rating:

(45637)

Condition:

New — never opened or used in original packaging.

Like New — packaging may have been opened. A "Like New" item is suitable to give as a gift.

Very Good — may have minor signs of wear on packaging but item works perfectly and has no damage.

Good — item is in good condition but packaging may have signs of shelf wear/aging or torn packaging. All specific defects should be noted in the Comments section associated with each item.

Acceptable — item is in working order but may show signs of wear such as scratches or torn packaging. All specific defects should be noted in the Comments section associated with each item.

Used — An item that has been opened and may show signs of wear. All specific defects should be noted in the Comments section associated with each item.

Refurbished — A used item that has been renewed or updated and verified to be in proper working condition. Not necessarily completed by the original manufacturer.

Very Good
SHIPS FAST! via UPS(AK/HI Priority Mail) within 24 hrs/ used sticker/some hilite

Ships from: Columbia, MO

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
$7.90
(Save 44%)
Books Any
Seller since 2010

Feedback rating:

(1664)

Condition: New
2009 Trade paperback New. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 188 p. Contains: Illustrations. Eminent Lives. Intended for a young adult/teenage audience.

Ships from: Valley Stream, NY

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
$8.54
(Save 39%)
SuperBookDeals-
Seller since 2008

Feedback rating:

(13076)

Condition: New
Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.

Ships from: South Bend, IN

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
$8.55
(Save 39%)
books_Xpress
Seller since 2012

Feedback rating:

(876)

Condition: New
BRAND NEW - 100% GUARANTEED! Fast shipping

Ships from: Bayonne, NJ

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
$8.58
(Save 39%)
indoo
Seller since 2007

Feedback rating:

(21382)

Condition: New
BRAND NEW

Ships from: Avenel, NJ

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
$8.60
(Save 39%)
More Books
Seller since 2011

Feedback rating:

(554)

Condition: Like New
Paperback Fine 100% Brand New!

Ships from: MIAMI, FL

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
$8.71
(Save 38%)
SuperBookDeals-
Seller since 2008

Feedback rating:

(13076)

Condition: Like New
Brand New, Perfect Condition, Please allow 4-14 business days for delivery. 100% Money Back Guarantee, Over 1,000,000 customers served.

Ships from: South Bend, IN

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
$8.74
(Save 38%)
More Books
Seller since 2011

Feedback rating:

(554)

Condition: New
Paperback 100% Brand New!

Ships from: MIAMI, FL

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
$8.86
(Save 37%)
booklab
Seller since 2010

Feedback rating:

(704)

Condition: Like New
2009 Paperback Fine Brand New! Fast shipping! Great customer service. You will be happy!

Ships from: Schenectady, NY

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
$9.00
(Save 36%)
booklab
Seller since 2010

Feedback rating:

(704)

Condition: New
2009 Paperback Brand New! Fast shipping! Great customer service. You will be happy!

Ships from: Schenectady, NY

Usually ships in 1-2 business days

  • •Canadian
  • •International
  • •Standard, 48 States
  • •Standard (AK, HI)
  • •Express, 48 States
  • •Express (AK, HI)
Page 1 of 2
Showing 1 – 10 of 18 (2 pages)
Close
Sort by
NOOK Book (eBook)
$9.99
BN.com price

Available on NOOK devices and apps

  • Nook Devices
  • NOOK
  • NOOK Color
  • NOOK Tablet
  • Tablet/Phone
  • NOOK for iPad
  • NOOK for iPhone
  • NOOK for Android
  • NOOK for Android (Tablet)
  • NOOK Kids for iPad
  • PC/Mac
  • NOOK Study
  • NOOK for PC
  • NOOK for Mac

Need a NOOK? Explore Now

More About This Book

Overview

In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens offers a startlingly new and provocative interpretation of our Founding Father. Situating Jefferson within the context of America's evolution and tracing his legacy over the past two hundred years, Hitchens brings the character of Jefferson to life as a man of his time and also as a symbolic figure beyond it.

Conflicted by power, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as Minister to France yet yearned for a quieter career in the Virginia legislature. Predicting that slavery would shape the future of America's development, this professed proponent of emancipation elided the issue in the Declaration and continued to own human property. An eloquent writer, he was an awkward public speaker; a reluctant candidate, he left an indelible presidential legacy.

Jefferson's statesmanship enabled him to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase with France, doubling the size of the nation, and he authorized the Lewis and Clark expedition, opening up the American frontier for exploration and settlement. Hitchens also analyzes Jefferson's handling of the Barbary War, a lesser-known chapter of his political career, when his attempt to end the kidnapping and bribery of Americans by the Barbary states, and the subsequent war with Tripoli, led to the building of the U.S. navy and the fortification of America's reputation regarding national defense.

In the background of this sophisticated analysis is a large historical drama: the fledgling nation's struggle for independence, formed in the crucible of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and, in its shadow, the deformation of that struggle in the excesses of the French Revolution. This artful portrait of a formative figure and a turbulent era poses a challenge to anyone interested in American history -- or in the ambiguities of human nature.

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780060837068
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Publication date: 5/5/2009
  • Pages: 208
  • Sales rank: 65,874
  • Series: Eminent Lives Series
  • Product dimensions: 5.31 (w) x 8.00 (h) x 0.46 (d)

Meet the Author

Christopher Hitchens
Christopher Hitchens
Chistopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was among the most wide-ranging, prolific and influential journalists and essayists of our time. Delighting in a combative attitude toward writers he disagreed with and frequently challenging conventional wisdom on subjects that included politics, religion, gender and literary taste, Hitchens was an eager debater and a much-admired stylist. At the time of his death from cancer in December 2011, he was a contributing editor to Vanity Fair as well as a frequent contributor to many other publications. His last published books included the essay collection Arguably and the bestselling memoir Hitch-22.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating 3.5
( 22 )

Rating Distribution

  • ( 9 )
  • ( 3 )
  • ( 5 )
  • ( 2 )
  • ( 3 )
If you've bought this product, tell the world how you liked it.
Write a Review
See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 22 Customer Reviews

  • Posted September 19, 2009

    Jefferson's contradictions explained

    Excellent book. Christopher Hitchens is an outstanding writer who is also well educated and well informed. These attributes clearly come out in this book. He unbiasedly explains Jefferson's life contradictions such as his ownership of slaves as well as his prolific beliefs against human ownership. Hitchens goes farther and meticulously points out Jefferson's many compassionate qualities, his logic and his use of REASON to reach conclusions, his disdain for beliefs in the supernatural and incantations. Then he shows Jefferson's errors in judgement, his "religious" analogies in his writings and many other contradictions in his life. AWESOME Book. Worth reading.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted January 26, 2012

    Highly recommend

    Thomas Jefferson by Christopher Hitchens is a fascinating book packed with interesting bits of information. and as is the usual case with Mr Hitchens books a delight to read.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted September 27, 2011

    Hitchen's in the Best!

    A very interesting read. Highly recommend.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted September 4, 2011

    Not reccommended.

    Read the entire thing and I found it more of a commentary on Jefferson than a biography where the reader makes their own opinions of the man. Full of run on sentences,the authors opinions (many times without facts to suppoert the opinion), and references of other books written on Jefferson, this is more of a theises on the man. As someone who reads mostly non-fiction, I can't reccommend this book. As I suffered through the entire thing I am glad the book wasn't that long. I believe I discovered as much about Jefferson by reading David McCullough's biography of John Adams.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Posted February 13, 2010

    effort at balance clouds clarity

    Hitchens airbrushes Jefferson's debt to slavery both in the political arena and his personal plantation. He never seems to state clearly that Jefferson's famous words hardly match his actions. I expected Hitchens, if only by reputation, to be more forthright. Disappointing effort.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted December 28, 2005

    Heavy going

    I was looking forward to reading a good biography of Thomas Jefferson and received this book as a gift. After completing several chapters, I decided to put it down and seek out another. I found this author's writing style heavy going. It reminded me of that colege professor who cannot make his point but becomes bogged down in run-on and on and on sentences to the point where you don't know what he's talking about. Too often, I found my self parsing back through the many commas in a complex sentence to see what the author had started out to say. I will probably only read one biography of Jefferson - this will not be it.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted July 4, 2005

    Vital and deeply informed

    I have spent the weekend before Monday July 4th with Christopher Hitchens' dense (in the very good way) Thomas Jefferson and regret having the weekend end. If you suspect an underlying love for the man in Hitchens' view, he keeps it well under control, and here is nothing like the hagiography of some of the other treatments. Perhaps it takes someone with the Hitchens spark to see this iconic figure in classical marble as a sensual man with a fox-like sense of politics, as well as sometimes considerable 'elasticity' when it comes to strict Constitutional questions. Hitchens did his homework for this compact book without a wasted word along the way, and I think he here controls his famous Wildean wit and plays close to the vital facts in respect of a man he considers a great formative figure in American life. Plenty of solid sure information here with a fillip of Hitchens wit just when we want it (so we don't forget the author of the book itself is a brilliant writer to reckon with). Hitchens is the right man for this, for Jefferson had the wit too, along with such scorn for English ways (he wrote to James Madison that the English ambassador's wife 'established a degree of dislike among all classes which one would have thought impossible in so short a time'. Good discussion of the Louisiana Purchase, Lewis's and Clark's expedition, the successes and failures Jefferson had in helping frame the Constitution, his forcefulness on the separation of church and state, his actions against north African terrorism of a sort, the decisions he made that helped prolong slavery and solidify it, and bring about the Civil War. Hitchens has real criticism of Jefferson too, and I myself could spot little bias in his book. Fascinating material on the relationship with his slave mistress Sally Hemings, who, Hitchens posits, in the face of other far more harsh judgments, might have found her master an attractive, fascinating, sensual, perhaps even loving man. A first rate introduction and more than that for those of us who are not historians, and surely of interest to the historians themselves.

    Was this review helpful? Yes  NoThank you for your feedback.   Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.

  • Anonymous

    Posted July 9, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted October 22, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 15, 2012

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted August 24, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted December 31, 2009

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 10, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted May 29, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 8, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted August 10, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 10, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 9, 2011

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted January 26, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

  • Anonymous

    Posted April 2, 2010

    No text was provided for this review.

See All Sort by: Showing 1 – 20 of 22 Customer Reviews
If you find inappropriate content, please report it to Barnes & Noble
Why is this product inappropriate?
Comments (optional)
500 character limit